Further Self
by yamikinoko
Summary: .Hikaru. His room was white. Too white. It served no interest to him whatsoever. So he changed it.


**A/N**: _I've been feeling decidedly depressed lately… But I don't emo (weird, I know) and I don't angst. I wangst, which is probably worse. –sigh– I need to work it out or something. Contest fic and spontaneous plotbunny._

**Disclaimer**: _I do not own __**Ouran High School Host Club**__ or there'd be heck of a lot of molestation reports in the police databanks._

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_"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid."_ Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)

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**Further Self**

The wall had two cracks in it, one thin, spidery one, not unlike the web he had seen outside his window that morning and another one, dark and bold in the whitewashed interior of the room, framed by the stark contrast of fresh coffee – he was pretty sure it was coffee – stains on the formerly spotless wall.

Steps pounded in the hallway outside and someone charged in, someone who looked a lot like him skidded into the room looking scared, eyes flickering back and forth between the wall and him.

"Hikaru, what-what are you doing?" then the boy seemed to think better of it and made soothing motions with his hands, "Just stay seated Hikaru, I'll be right back," and disappeared from the room again.

_Hikaru… That sounded familiar. What is "Hikaru"?_

The boy came back with a girl in frilly dress of black and white who gave him a wide-eyed look before bending down to pick up the broken pieces of glass on the floor. The red-haired boy who looked like him came to his side and took his hand, his hand that was still trembling on its armrest perch and he looked in confusion at their clasped hands,

"Hikaru, are you okay? Hikaru, talk to me."

Hikaru, there it was again. Was this boy talking to him? He wrinkled his brow in concentration as he looked down at himself, at the arms and body that sat where Hikaru was supposed to be except he was the one sitting there…

_Oh. I am Hikaru. Then who is this person?_

"Come on, Hikaru, I'm taking you to bed. Hey, when you're done, I want you to call my mother. Tell her to come home as soon as possible."

For some reason, Hikaru didn't think this boy wanted him to call his mother but he let the boy pull him from his seat on the chair – was he really sitting there just now? – and let him lead him over to the bed, let him push him down to sit on the bed – why couldn't he sit on the chair? – and let him push him down to lie on the bed – oh, that's why – to stare up at the ceiling, the plain, unmarked ceiling.

The ceiling didn't have cracks or brown marks on it. He couldn't help but think that the ceiling was really boring to stare at without the cracks or brown marks in it.

_Who is this boy? Why did the boy want him to lie on the bed instead of sit in the chair?_

"Hikaru, are you thirsty? Do you want water?" the boy was asking but he was too busy looking at the ceiling to hear him. He didn't notice as the boy left or when the boy came back in or when the boy put a glass of water on the desk by the bed. His eyes were closed and he was busy thinking of how the ceiling would look with cracks and brown marks in it, and maybe if some other color would look interesting with the cracks and the brown.

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He was awake but he couldn't see anything. His hand was cold and he couldn't move his hands and legs for some reason. His first thought was that he was outside in the snow and he had lost one of his mittens and he ran around in circles looking for it, looking for it, looking for it but he couldn't find it, he really couldn't see anything in the dark, why couldn't he see, where was his ceiling, his wall with the cracks and brown marks-

Something touched his forehead gently and he realized strange little sounds were coming out of his mouth, tiny squeaks escaping from his burning throat – he didn't know he could make sounds like that at all – and someone, a lady's voice said,

"Poor Hikaru… What are we going to do?"

_I know that voice… I know that person, wait, no I don't. Who is that person?_

"Mother, can't we find a doctor for him?"

_That voice he knew, it was that boy, that boy who had put him in bed. Maybe the boy would tell him why he couldn't see._

"Oh, honey, I don't know. We've gone through all the doctors in Kyoto and the Ohtori family is still looking for us, oh honey, I just don't know…"

The lady's voice ended in a funny, wet sound and his eyes fluttered open – oh, that's why he couldn't see – to see a pretty lady standing beside his bed and the boy; the boy was hugging the pretty lady and he couldn't see their faces – why wouldn't they let him see their faces? – so his forehead wrinkled again as he tried to remember who they were – he should know them – but he tried and he tried but he just couldn't remember, why couldn't he remember?

The lady turned to see him and he looked at her with a frown, but that didn't feel right so he tried to rearrange his mouth somehow but that didn't feel right either. He finally settled for a confused look and that felt right, felt like it was supposed to be on his face.

"Oh baby, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

'_I'm sorry too_…' he thought, then, '_Why?_'

The boy came to the side of the bed and looked at him too and for a moment he thought he was in the bathroom, looking in the shiny glass at himself, but this self didn't do the same thing he did – he tried by tilting his head a little – so he wasn't in the bathroom.

_My other other self… I don't know my other other self._

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He was looking in the shiny glass and for a moment, he thought that he was looking at the boy who had brought him here – had he really? Where had he gone? – but when he blinked, his other self in the mirror blinked and that was how he knew he wasn't looking at the boy, his other other self.

He looked down at the edges of the porcelain bowl he was resting his hands on and thought that it was white, too white, just like his ceiling and not very fun to look at all. There were no cracks or brown marks and--he frowned and this time, it felt right-

_The boy's name is Kaoru. His other other self's name is Kaoru._

Kaoru was taking care of him. Elation rose in him and he happily looked up at the shiny glass and his other self looked surprised to see him.

'_I have something to tell you_,' he tried to say but his other self didn't open his mouth, '_I know my other other self's name_,' but when his other self gave him another puzzled look, he suddenly realized he didn't know what his other other self was called anymore, did he ever know it at all?

"Hikaru, look who I brought to see you," his other other self called into the room and when he turned to see, he found behind his other other self a small girl with brown hair and big, brown eyes that made him feel funny.

"Hi Hikaru," she said softly, which made those funny feelings get bigger in his chest until it almost felt like he couldn't breathe and he frowned, even though the frown didn't feel right on his face either-

"Go… go away…"

It wasn't until his other other self hurried the girl out of the door that he realized he was the one who had said that, not his other self, not his other other self, him. Himself. The next moment found him staring at another crack in the white wall and his other other self and the girl ran back in to stare at him, at the crack in the bathroom wall, at the pieces of glass on the floor, on the white, white wall and the white, white floor.

_Who is she?_

"I'll go get a maid to clean up the glass," his other other self croaked and fled. The girl took a look at the boy's retreating back and looked at him, then at the boy's back again,

"Wait here, okay? I'll be right back," and she was gone too, leaving Hikaru to sit down on the edge of the bathtub and look at the crack on the wall and the shiny places on the wall where the plaster was wet.

He watched in fascination as a tiny rivulet dripped down to the floor, onto the shiny pieces that used to be the cup – when it flew, the funny feelings the girl had given him got worse - and he reached out a hand in curiosity, to pick up one of those shiny pieces - glittering and bright, so bright - in his hand. A tiny prick registered in his head and even more intrigued now, he gripped the piece harder and this time, it was like something hit him and he looked in astonishment at the bright color, the bright red that dripped onto the shiny pieces…

_Haruhi… Kaoru… Mom…_

Hikaru found his mind clearer than it had been in days, weeks, and he knew that everything belonged to him, his hands, his body, his blazing eyes and a fierce desire to speak, to tell, to declare rose in him so that he ran out of the bathroom after Haruhi and Kaoru, out of the room and into the hallway--into the hallway, stopped in the hallway.

Went back into the room – his room he recognized now – and looked at the once pristine wall, now with thin fractures and tan with splattered coffee stains, then at the bloodied glass shard on the floor by his bare feet, then back at the wall. Picked up the glass shard.

His recently found clarity leaked away slowly, gradually as the water on the bathroom wall had slid away and he smiled – bitterly – and the expression was as home on his face as any had ever been.

_'Dulcet shades of claret made for the finest embellishment_,' he decided.

A murmured gasp echoed in his ears and remained emblazoned in his mind as surely as any clip of a movie, beautiful, fiery, not-his, never his. He took it with him.

./OWARI;

**A/N**: _I'm trying to decide if that's long or short… Hrm. Probably long for a contest fic and short for an actual fic. Butcher please; questions welcome as it'll probably let me know where I made things too vague or committed some dreadful fallacy._

-MshRm


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